Towered
Superstar
I very much doubt we'd put up much resistance at all, if any. Well, maybe Quebec would - the French are much more belligerent in general.
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PM Mark Carney's Canada
- Thread starter Richard White
- Start date
kEiThZ
Superstar
I am much more concerned about economic coercion than an actual invasion. And I agree:
Towered
Superstar
True, they wouldn't even need to militarily invade us. Trump could just ratchet up the pressure like he's doing with Greenland right now.
Just last week a reporter asked him about concerns by the Big 3 automakers regarding how the tariffs are negatively impacting production here, and he just dismissed it by saying "I want them to build cars in the US, not Canada."
goreckm
Active Member
Yeah, given how many people will drop their "boycott" of American produce to save a buck, I don't see many giving up their lives.
I'm sure there would be some kind of resistance groups sowing chaos, but nothing that would change the outcome.
Towered
Superstar
We're in this unenviable position because of multiple generations of Canadians naively assuming that the Americans will always be our best friends, and that nothing would ever change that. Preparations for a worst-case scenario were never made, despite the War of 1812...
The only constant in world history is change.
goreckm
Active Member
I think Carney put it pretty well in his speech, that America (great power) always used its position to be above the law, and we went along with it because we benefited as well. It was quite amazing to hear a world leader talk this frankly about it. In some ways we're at fault as well for looking the other way, turning the other cheek, etc, until it's our turn.
Towered
Superstar
Well, Trudeau the Elder (the one with balls) didn't exactly have a rosy relationship with the White House...
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Keeping us out of Vietnam, thankfully. Though Lester Pearson, not Trudeau, deserves the most credit, with his clear early refusal to support US escalation in Vietnam (including Pearson’s 1965 speech urging a bombing halt). Jean Chrétien also kept Canada out of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, but still sent our troops to fight and die in the White House's other war in Afghanistan.
kEiThZ
Superstar
For most of my military career, I was regularly told by Canadians, especially those on the left, that we didn't need a military, because the Americans will take care of it, for us. Canadians have routinely viewed military affairs as something that Americans do and that we explicitly don't do. You can go back 12-24 months on most forums and you'll find people saying that we didn't really need to meet NATO's 2% target because it was "a made-up number". I have warned people for years that if we relied on the Americans, they would eventually see our consent as unnecessary. Now, having mostly disarmed, we have loud chest thumping from some about how they'll fight off the Americans. Please. We couldn't be bothered to even spend the 2% till Trump literally threatened to annex us.
My real fear is not that Trump will invade. My real fear is that no lessons will be learned. And that as soon as Trump is out of office, there will be calls to cut defence spending. There's always some social program to spend on (Liberals) or some tax cut to give (Conservatives). It's usually pretty lonely to argue that we should act like a real sovereign G7 country.
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Northern Light
Superstar
Greenland is not being surrendered by the locals or the Danes.
The added pressure is a threat (unlikely to be acted on)
But even if it were, look at the on-the-ground impacts in Europe and Canada to date. They are modest, most sectors are actually exempt, and/or individual products or classes of products are exempt.
Yes, the U.S. could apply much greater pressure, but they likely won't. Look at what happened when Americans balked at paying tariffs on Chinese-made Iphones.
Trumps tariffs have more holes than Swiss Cheese.
That's not to suggest they aren't disruptive and material in select cases (ask our Steel industry); but they are also remarkably ineffective at achieving their stated goals (reshoring U.S. jobs), meanwhile they are proving quite successful at stoking U.S. inflation.
The headline numbers still aren't too bad (2.7% CPI) but look under the hood, and find food and shelter up 3.1%.
The latter should be all but impossible if you believe the rhetoric on the U.S.population shrinking via deportation, self-deportation, and cuts to immigration/foreign students.
But if you jack the cost of building materials and agricultural inputs like Potash........
*****
Suffice to say, a boots-on-the-ground U.S. invasion is not coming. There's always 1 in a million odds of anything; but its beyond improbable.
We needn't address a war games scenario that is not in the offing. (not to suggest the military shouldn't do so, but for the public, its a bit of silly exercise)
The economic issues of the disruption to date are very manageable and in fact, show significant sign of some benefits to Canada, though those are at least partially things happening for other reasons, anyway, that have just been slightly accelerated) .
(as example, our reliance on U.S. produce, even off-season, is declining), both due to greater domestic production, particularly of salad greens, and berries, but also due to sourcing shifts, picking up products from Europe and Latin America.
That said,, we remain dependent on U..S sources for up to 55% of produce in the off-season (down from high 60s) and getting that number much lower will require further investments over time.
We certainly should make such investments to be more sovereign and more resilient and my industry contacts suggest this is likely, though as much motivated by concern over climate as tariffs, with California and Arizona facing increasing water difficulties, as well as Canada's increasing leadership in greenhouse growing.
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urbanclient
Active Member
I probably detest Pierre Poilievre less than the average Urban Toronto member, but I think even the staunchest supporters of the Conservatives can recognize that Carney is well spoken here:
That poorer countries benefit more proportionally (income, quality of life etc.) from free trade under globalization is a well-documented phenomenon. The real question for Canada is whether aggregate gains justified the long-term loss of domestic industry and associated productivity growth, along with the resulting uneven welfare effects, e.g., worsening income and wealth inequality. Could we have found aggregate gains through other means?
Increased tariffs may suck for everyone in the short-term, but if done in a prudent and strategic manner (not Trump flip-flopping and erratically waging economic war), may benefit the US domestic economy in the long-run, according to some schools of thought. But Trump's volatile, sometimes nonsensical approach has bolstered the pro-free trade camp, while discrediting the few remaining modern protectionists.
China's rise has largely been the result of very one-sided globalism. Free flow of capital into China, not so free flow capital out of China. Easy for China to sell to others. Not so easy to sell goods and services to China. Easy for Chinese companies to go global. Not so easy for foreign companies to enter China: lest they face joint venture requirements, forced tech transfers, and legal favouritism towards their local competition. Not that long ago that foreign credit cards were not accepted in China, forcing ex-pats to use domestic equivalents and mobile payments.
Carney being a self-admitted globalist in the way most people understand 'globalist' is not really up for debate. The point of contention is whether globalization is good or bad for Canada. In some ways, it may have hurt us in the long term with the loss of our industrial base.
That poorer countries benefit more proportionally (income, quality of life etc.) from free trade under globalization is a well-documented phenomenon. The real question for Canada is whether aggregate gains justified the long-term loss of domestic industry and associated productivity growth, along with the resulting uneven welfare effects, e.g., worsening income and wealth inequality. Could we have found aggregate gains through other means?
Increased tariffs may suck for everyone in the short-term, but if done in a prudent and strategic manner (not Trump flip-flopping and erratically waging economic war), may benefit the US domestic economy in the long-run, according to some schools of thought. But Trump's volatile, sometimes nonsensical approach has bolstered the pro-free trade camp, while discrediting the few remaining modern protectionists.
China's rise has largely been the result of very one-sided globalism. Free flow of capital into China, not so free flow capital out of China. Easy for China to sell to others. Not so easy to sell goods and services to China. Easy for Chinese companies to go global. Not so easy for foreign companies to enter China: lest they face joint venture requirements, forced tech transfers, and legal favouritism towards their local competition. Not that long ago that foreign credit cards were not accepted in China, forcing ex-pats to use domestic equivalents and mobile payments.
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Admiral Beez
Superstar
My whole career has been about selling Canadian made products to China, including joining PM Paul Martin in the 2005 Team Canada mission (I need to find that group photo somewhere), and over a dozen trip to HKG and the mainland, last in 2024. Make what they want and they'll find a way to buy it.
urbanclient
Active Member
It's all relative haha. I made an oversimplified point, I appreciate the nuanced perspective. My point is that barriers to entry in practice tend to be higher in China than western counterparts. Especially obvious for nationally sensitive industries like natural resources, arms, digital services and mass media, but also fintech, alcohol, tobacco, certain food items like rice (examples that are dissimilar from the classic Canadian banking / telecom cartel). I have seen their Customs Tariff Schedule, effectively larger than Canada's when so many more items have positive rates. Average import rates are double that of Canada, import VAT also much higher. This is what I mean, easy to sell from China, not as easy to sell into China.
I remember, taxes in, a Toyota Corolla in China costing as high as $40k CAD equivalent in 2019, compare that to ~$30-31k CAD for the highest trim in Canada for 2019. It's no wonder the subsidized domestic EV and hybrid industry took off when foreign made econo cars cost so much more in China, where incomes are so much lower.
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Admiral Beez
Superstar
adma
Superstar
Not least because they'll probably be too distracted by domestic unrest--or too high on stoking it--in order to bother with Canada.